Empty Spaces
by speaks
Summary: He was such an idiot. That empty seat next to her; all day he'd been waiting for someone to take it up and comfort her. Thinking of her as some sort of saint with a thousand friends was so naive of him. Mari was just a normal girl, and everyone she knew had let her down today when she needed someone to lean on. Right then and there he decided to be that someone.
1. Chapter 1

This fic is going to some emotional places. :)

* * *

 **Empty Spaces ㅡ Part One**

* * *

When Adrien pushed the door to the classroom open that Friday morning, it was to the sight of the other students crowding around Marinette's desk. Something in his gut twisted, reacting to the heavy mood of the classroom like wood to a flame.

One by one they they filed away to their own chairs while Adrien lingered by the door with his hand on his backpack strap, eyeing the vacant spot next to Marinette where Alya should have been. Upon closer inspection, he found that everyone was taking turns with a large folded card, each signing their name and leaving behind a short 'get well' message. Nino was the only one left standing there when Adrien finally plucked up the wherewithal to cross the room. Adrien patiently waited for Nino to finish up whatever he was writingㅡwhich in Adrien's humble opinion was a little on the long side for someone who was supposedly 'just friends' with Alya. He gave the guy a sneaky, knowing grin. For once Nino didn't vehemently deny the playful accusation and only shrugged his way back into the seat in front of Alya's empty one.

Then Adrien was alone at Marinette's desk.

Normally this would have flustered her a bit, and he was aware of this, so it kind of worried him that she didn't seem the slightest bit interested in her surroundings. "Hi Marinette," he offered quietly, picking up one of her colorful gel pens to leave a heartfelt message for their hospitalized friend. "You okay?"

That caught her attention. Marinette blinked out of her reverie and realized that Adrien was leaning over her desk, regarding her with sympathy and concern. "Me?" she sighed. "I'm fine."

"Woah, hey, how'd you get Ladybug's signature?!" He froze halfway through signing his own name under the ten happy-face emojis he'd just drawn when he saw Ladybug's familiar loopy font in the center of the page. There was no doubt in his mind it was the real deal; he'd only seen her sign it about a million times for their fans. The only question was: _how?_

"Oh," Marinette squeaked, "well, she was really worried after what happened. She came to me this morning, actually, because she knew I was friends with Alya. To ask how Alya was doing. I think she feels responsible…"

That news twisted Adrien's gut even further. He should have known something was wrong with his lady when she vanished into thin air yesterday after Alya's injury went unaffected by the standard healing spell. That had never happened before, and Adrien had been so shocked that Alya was still in pain that he had no idea what to do. There had always been injuries during akuma attacks, but by the end Lady would always patch it up, like broken bones were no more than scraped knees. He'd always admired that about her powers; after all, all he could do was break things to pieces. Mending them again was just, _wow_.

 _Ladybug_ was wow.

So for damage to slip by Ladybug's radar, untouched and unhealed? It was unprecedented.

"So she should," Chloe said, appearing from nowhere at Adrien's right shoulder to startle him from the ice cold memory of yesterday and grab a gold pen. With a haughty nudge to move him out of her way, she started signing her name in huge writing, half obscuring Nath's tiny 'get well' comic. "It was her fault, after allㅡ"

"You don't know what you're talking about, Chloe," Adrien interrupted. It was obvious she was upsetting Marinette, who was now biting her lip so hard he worried it might split. "You weren't even there when it happened."

"Neither were you two," Chloe scoffed.

"Fine," Adrien ground out, annoyed that he couldn't refute that with a furious _yeah, I fucking was_. "But Marinette is the one who rode in the ambulance with Alya to the hospital yesterday, and she's the one who made the card you're signing, so for some reason I feel like you should just _shut up_ about it, you know?"

Ever the cavalier queen, Chloe hummed and hawed and snorted at that, but in the end didn't care enough to push the point and stalked back to her own seat. Marinette slumped down onto the now-finished card, visibly checking out of the conversation. Taking that as his cue to leave her alone, he settled into his own seat in front of her.

The emptiness of Alya's chair hung like a weight on the school all day. On Adrien especially, since he felt responsible, as Chat Noir, for Alya's injury. In a sense, he'd failed her. He should have protected her better, or he should have insisted she run when she stayed to film, or he should have crossed the room faster when the akuma turned his sights on her, or he should have gotten between them before the overpowered fist connected with her ribs. He should have done _anything_. One question thrummed like a pendulum throughout the day. Why, why, why? Why did her injury alone remain when everything else was healed?

Try as they might, their teachers couldn't seem to reign in the note-passing and whispering as the students speculated about what might have gone wrong with Ladybug's powers that never had before. Nino himself seemed uninterested in that partㅡmore so in texting Alya under his desk all day when he thought the teacher wasn't looking. Adrien took to kicking him in the leg whenever he was in danger of being found out. For her part, Marinette was far quieter and reserved than she had ever been in class before. Adrien couldn't help but notice that after the initial cluster of students around her desk signing the card, no one seemed to be paying her much attention. The hive-mind was focused on Alya's absence, and no one seemed to remember how utterly distraught Marinette had been as she climbed into the ambulance behind the gurney.

About halfway through the day, Adrien craned around in his seat to look at her again, and frown at the empty seat beside her. It was obvious that she was hurting. Shouldn't one of her other friends have come over to sit by her for the day?

At the end of the long, slow school day he numbly retrieved the rest of his books from his locker for the weekend, half-listening to Nino's passionate monologue about the state of hospital food and the importance of bringing Alya something better to eat, and half-watching Marinette trudge alone through the hall toward the school doors. "Hold that thought, Nino," he said, and ran to catch up with their departing friend just outside the doors in the hot sun. "Wait," he said, resting one hand on her shoulder. "I just wanted to say…" He trailed off, a little caught off guard by how earnestly she turned back to look up at him. "It's gonna be okay," he finished weakly. "I know the doctors don't really know what happened yet, but I have a lot of faith in Ladybug's abilities. There's no way this isn't fixable. Maybe it's just taking longer than it normally does, you know?"

That brought a smile to Marinette's face for the first time all day, and the sight of it lifted his spirits immensely. "Thanks Adrien," she sighed. "I really needed that. See you Monday," she grinned weakly.

He grinned back with a lot more confidence than he felt, and waved as she walked down the steps. But then he was hit with a sudden rush of understanding, and it bubbled up like bile in his throat, choking him just the same. Something had been bothering him all day, lurking out of sight in the back of his mind, and in a second of blinding clarity as Marinette walked away from him he finally put his finger on it.

It was watching her pick her way through a crowd of friendly faces that did it, and the fact that everyone waved and smiled at her but no one _went_ to her. No one took up the empty space next to her to walk her home, to talk to her, to lend her a shoulder or an ear or a hand. Ever since he first came to this school, Adrien had regarded Marinette as this social savant. She was so kind and amazing that everyone seemed to love her uniformly. She was the kind of person that was friends with everyone, even with people like Chloe. But as he watched everyone wave to Mari and then turn back to whoever they were talking to before, Adrien realized that Marinette was just like him. Sure she had a million friends, but was she really close to anyone save for Alya?

Everyone liked him well enough, but if Nino was the one in the hospital, Adrien knew he'd be feeling completely dejected and alone. Was that how _Marinette_ felt?

The idea of Marinette feeling the same loneliness he himself was so familiar with coiled up in his stomach like a live thing, a snake threatening to sink its fangs in. He was such an idiot. That empty seat next to her; all day he'd been waiting for someone to take it up and comfort her. That could have been him if he wasn't such a blind moron, thinking of her as some sort of saint with a thousand friends. It was so naive of him. Mari was just a normal girl, and everyone she knew had let her down today when she needed someone to lean on.

Right then and there he decided to be that someone.

.

.

It was around 7pm that night when his burner phone buzzed. He coughed loudly to hide the sound from Nathalie (the idea of her finding out about his secret second phone was terrifying) and excused himself from the weekly meeting as soon as he was able to get a word in edgewise, complaining of a sore throat and coughing a bit more for effect. Only when he had safely locked his bedroom door behind him did he pull the tiny unassuming phone from his back pocket to see what Ladybug had said. She'd only sent a single text, so something told him it wasn't about an akuma. Sure enough, the message was rather short and to the point.

[ **lovebug** ]

( _hey i know its your night for patrol but can i come_ )

The idea of Ladybug actively seeking him out on her off night would normally have thrilled him to the point of driving Plagg insane. But after the incident yesterday and her instant disappearance afterward and then Marinette's comment this morning, he was decidedly worried about this newest development.

( _Yes_ ,) he texted back, ( _of course. Usual place, one hour?_ )

[ **lovebug** ]

( _see you there_ )

When she swooped down to meet him on the roof of the cathedral he was already there waiting in the dark corner. "You know," he purred, "you don't have to ask when you want to crash my patrols. I love it when you drop in unannounced."

"I know. But I wanted to make sure you'd be here," she said, and there was a definite tremor in her voice. His cat ears flicked toward the sound involuntarily and his eyes strained to see her face where she stood, hidden in the deepest shadowed corner of the rooftop.

"Ladybug?" Worry colored her name, and even with most of her body obscured in the blackness he saw how she responded, the way she flinched toward him like she was about to fall. "What's wrong?" he soothed, closing the gap between them with three long strides, completely bypassing the pretence of nonchalance. He'd had a feeling this was about yesterday but he hadn't expected _this_. Gently he took her by the hand and pulled her out of the dark corner and into the wash of silver starlight that lit the rest of the ivory rooftop, noting, as he did, that even as she stubbornly looked the other way, she offered zero physical resistance. Starlight glistened in the corners of her eyes. "Bug," he whispered. Softly; lovingly. "Look at me."

And she did.

When she tore her eyes from the road below and looked up at him he saw something on her face that he had never, ever, _ever_ wanted to see. Something raw and twisted and gut-wrenching. Heartbreak.

Her heartbreak washed over him like a tidal wave, settling in his lungs like actual water so that he found he couldn't breathe. Quite against his own will, his hands flew to her face. As if he could wipe that look off with just his bare hands if he wanted to badly enough. This set her off. She squeezed her eyes shut the second his palms came in contact with the rim of her jaw, and her hands flew to his wrists. For a fleeting instant he thought she was going to throw his hands away from herㅡafter all, he had just overstepped her usual boundaries by several miles. But instead she clung to him like a lifeline and collapsed.

 _What in the hell._

He stumbled backwards as she fell on him, reeling in every possible way, both physical and metaphysical. The sound of ragged breathing cut into his heart and he realized she was _crying_.

Ladybug, crying? And to _him?_

Swiftly he moved his hands from her face to her back, trying to get some kind of a hold on her that kept her from actually falling. He eyed the edge of the roof a couple feet to his left, wary of the idea of her slipping into the wide void between here and the street in this state. But the more he tried to hold her up the less she seemed able to stand and, after a moment more of this, he decided _screw it._ Bending over to catch her behind the knees with the crook of his elbow, he hoisted her up into his arms, bridal style. The fact that she said absolutely nothing as he did thisㅡdidn't quip or jump away or blush with the ferocity of a thousand sunsㅡhonestly scared him. This was so unlike her. He knew she was self-conscious about making mistakes and had known this since the day they met, but this was just wrong. This was more than ' _I made a mistake.'_ This was… He didn't know what this was.

As he shifted her weight against his chest so he knew he wouldn't possibly drop her, she cried openly, tucking her head into his shoulder. With no idea what to do or say, he decided perhaps it was just best to let her get it out before airing his million questions and reassurances. So he inched over to the edge of the roof and eased down, dangling his legs off and letting her come to rest sideways on his lap. A day ago he'd have been thrilled out of his damn mind to find himself in this position. Now? He'd do just about anything under the sun for her to suddenly brighten up and backflip away, declaring him an incorrigible flirt with that half-wrinkled nose and that blinding smile.

But she didn't. She stayed limp where he set her, tears spilling from beneath her mask onto the leather of his suit.

They must have sat there silently for nearly thirty minutes before Ladybug's breathing finally evened out, and her shoulders stopped hitching beneath his arm. All the while he waited patiently for her to let it out, holding her up with one hand and sometimes wiping her tears with the other when the sight of them shining on her face became too much for him to handle, sometimes brushing her hair from her face when the evening wind whipped it into her eyes. Only when she seemed truly finished did he speak.

"It wasn't your fault," he mumbled, face half obscured in her hair.

Below him, Ladybug shook her head.

"It wasn't," he insisted. "Hawkmoth is the one who injured that girl, not you. And you're not infallible. You can't expect your powers to be able to fix everything, all the time, a hundred percent. There have been some things I haven't been able to completely destroy too, remember? We may be heroes, but we're still human. Neither of us are perfect."

She shook her head more insistently. "You don't understand."

"Then help me understand," he urged patiently.

That made her finally look up into his eyes, for the first time since he'd picked her up and moved to the edge of the roof. Her eyebrow furrowed, just slightly, like she was trying to put her finger on the answer to a riddle. Then, she looked down. First at his chest, then at his arm, then at herself, and she seemed to finally register where she was and what they were doing. With a start she jostled to life, crawling off him, a tinge of red to rival her mask itself creeping down into her cheeks. However, when she settled in next to him it was without any of the usual space she silently insisted upon. Their legs pressed together and her shoulder came rest on the middle of his bicep, almost like she would have welcomed the idea of him putting his arm back around her. She folded her hands anxiously in her lap, biting her lip.

"Ladybug," he tried again when it grew clear she wasn't going to answer. "Come on, I've never seen you like this before. You're scaring me a bit. Please," he added softly, his fingers itching to reach over and curl into hers. _Not now. This isn't the time, Agreste._ "These masks are like this… wall," he sighed, for lack of a better word, "between us. You're my best friend and yet, somehow, I'm helpless to comfort you when you need it."

Slowly she released her lip from the death grip she was biting it with before. "I'm your best friend?"

He wasn't sure how to interpret her carefully colorless tone, so he opted for total honesty in his answer. "Well," he said, "yeah. I have one really good friend in my civilian life. He's the best," Adrien grinned, a brief montage of all his greatest moments with Nino running through his head. "But he's not _you,_ you know?" And it wasn't even because he was in love with herㅡwell, it was definitely that, but it went far beyond that too. "You and I have seen some shit together," he laughed, and to his delight the corner of her lips curved upward, just a smidge. "You're… everything, to me."

She turned to him, loose hair falling into her face and spilling over her shoulders along with the whims of the breeze. It struck him that he'd only ever seen her hair down as Ladybug a couple of times; and even then, it was usually because they'd been called out of bed at 3am to fight an akuma, and she usually paused between blows to tug it into a loose bun. Seeing her like this, with her hair untethered, it felt like she was allowing him to see _beyond_ Ladybug. Beyond the mask to the girl underneath.

"You really think of me like that?" she wondered at him. Before he could answer with a resounding _yes_ , she blinked at him once, slowly, the way a cat does when it's deciding whether to let you pet it. "I think of you that way too. I guess that's why I had to see you tonight," she went on, unaware that he'd almost just fainted dead away off the edge of the building. "I didn't know who else to turn to."

The thought of Ladybug struggling alone with this heartache was too much to bear; he'd always imagined she was the kind of girl with a million friends. Like Marinette. This thought stopped him cold; the revelation that Marinette didn't have a million shoulders to lean on after all was still new, and the idea that he had made the exact same misconception about Ladybug threatened to strangle him alive. How could he be so dense?

Adrien blurted it out before thinking, aghast at the injustice of it. "You don't have any support in your civilian life?"

His question only served to furrow her eyebrow again, leaving her with that look. That 'trying to figure you out' look. "Alya _is_ my support," she finally said, and then tore her eyes away, training them again on the road far below. "Usually."

He fought the urge to dig his fingers in his ears and clean them out. He couldn't have heard that right. "You know Alya on a personal level?" he phrased carefully.

"I don't just know her," Ladybug sighed, and tears pricked her eyes once again. "She's my best friend, Chat. I know I shouldn't tell you this because it's a _giant_ clue, but I trust you not to go digging for my identity. And besides, I don't have _anyone_ to talk to about this. I feel like I'm going to lose my mind. Alya is my best friend and I totally, completely let her down yesterday. Ladybug is her hero and I _failed her_."

The only words crossing his mind as she spoke were ' _no way,'_ repeating over and over, louder and louder, until she finished speaking and looked back at him again. When she did it was like she'd turned a lighthouse beacon on him, and the ' _no way'_ became a ' _hell fucking yes way_.' Her gaze hit him like a tangible heat, scorching his skin, hurting his eyes. In that moment she may as well have been sitting there in the clothes she wore to school earlier, that cute patchwork sundress and the matching blue hat, for all the good her mask did to hide her from him. In that moment he _saw her_. Nothing she did or said from here on out would ever again be the same, because in the span of a few seconds 'Ladybug' had vanished forever from his life. And he wasn't sad. Wouldn't miss her. Because in her place was someone wonderful and precious and larger than life itself. In her place was Marinette.

"What?" she said, switching from sorrow to bemused confusion. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Oh, nothing!" he choked, only locating his voice box after a frantic search. "I just find it unfortunate that your best friend happens to be the girl that runs the Ladyblog. That must make things difficult."

That satisfied her curiosity, and she wrinkled her nose up at him. "Like you wouldn't believe. Look, Chat..." His heart stammered so hard over its next beat he was briefly worried for his health. _Marinette_ , his blood thrummed. Like a prayer. _Marinette_. "You mean the world to me too. Sometimes I don't know what I'd do without you. You're right about the friends thing. Alya is the best, but sometimes I need someone who just understands. About everything. About both sides of me."

He didn't miss the way her eyes flitted to him momentarily.

"I could be that person for you," he murmured. _Please, let me be that person._

"I know," she answered quietly, and without any hesitance swooped in to kiss him on the cheek. "Thank you for cheering me up, bff."

His hand flew to his cheek like a magnet as she stood and stretched, trying to keep the warmth from escaping into the night air. "Butㅡbut I didn't do anything," he spluttered. He'd meant to sweep her off her feet and vehemently deny the idea that she had failed in any way; to reassure her that she was like the golden light from heaven and she'd never done wrong in her entire life. He hadn't managed to spit out any of it!

But Ladybug only giggled, and ruffled his hair. "Yes you did," she assured him. "See you tomorrow, minou."

"See you Maㅡmy lady," he slipped. It was in stunned silence that he watched her go, running and gliding across the sloping rooftops in the general direction of the Dupain-Cheng bakery until she was nothing but a dark speck passing in front of the intermittent city lights, like an actual little bug. "Marinette," he whispered to himself, only when she was truly gone, vanished into the sprawling urban maze. "Marinette…"

He sat up there for a long while, flat on his back and watching the stars as he travelled backward in his memories, counting all the missed clues that preceded this night. At the end of his mental journey he was back to today. To the hunch in Marinette's shoulders. To the way she said, "I think she feels responsible..." in regards to Ladybug. The way she risked totally exposing herself by signing that card as LB, just because it would make Alya smile. The way she had looked so alone without her best friend.

About an hour after Ladybug's departure, Adrien gave in. He couldn't stand waiting to see her until tomorrow. He transformed back and ignored Plagg's sullen demands for food as he dug his cell phone out of his jeans and brought up Marinette in his contacts.

( _Hey Mari_ ,) he finally settled, after typing up and deleting a thousand different introductions, all while trying to dodge Plagg's barrage of questions and playful taunts. ( _I know this is super out of nowhere, but how open would you be to the idea of me coming over to your house right now?_ )

It took her less than a minute to respond, in three rapid-fire texts.

[ **Mari** ]

( _me?_ )

[ **Mari** ]

( _very open I guess?_ )

[ **Mari** ]

( _my parents though, like 0% open to that. it's almost midnight_ )

Adrien had to bite back a smile at her response, which only set off Plagg even more. ( _Let me rephrase then,_ ) he typed out. ( _How open would you be to the idea of me coming over without your parents knowing?_ )

This time she took almost five whole minutes to respond, so by the time she did he was almost hyperventilating from the torture of awaiting her verdict.

[ **Mari** ]

( _um.. you're right, this is kind of out of nowhere haha. but i'm definitely open to that._ )

[ **Mari** ]

( _however, idk how you would possibly get in without them seeing. my bedroom is at the top floor, remember? my parents are downstairs watching tv. idk how you'd sneak past them_ )

[ **Mari** ]

( _i guess i could distract them?_ )

( _That won't be necessary_ ,) he answered, already standing and getting ready to recall Plagg to his transformation. ( _I'll manage. See you in ten?_ )

[ **Mari** ]

( _whatever you say haha. if you get caught tho im throwing you to the dogs. i mean i like you and all but im NOT going down with you on this m. agreste_ )

That was such a Ladybug thing to say. It took every fiber of his being not to quip back at that with an equally Chat response, involving some manner of pun about a cat being thrown to the dogs. He typed up, ( _That's fair, but I promise it won't be necessary.)_ But then, before he could stop himself, he added, _(I've got a catlike tread)._

* * *

 _._

 _._

Stay tuned for part two!

And yes, there will be an actual answer as to why Alya wasn't healed properly. No loose ends here.

And yes, that was a Pirates of Penzance reference at the end there. (If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it. If you do, eyyy. *finger guns*)


	2. Chapter 2

"What shall we use to fill the empty spaces

where waves of hunger roar?"

ㅡPink Floyd (The Wall, 1979) (cut)

* * *

 **Empty Spaces ㅡ Part Two**

* * *

By the time he dropped onto Marinette's roof more than thirty minutes had passed since he originally contacted her. He'd told her ten minutes, then. Hopefully she was still awake. With a furtive glance at the deserted street below, he detransformed. A quick glance at his phone showed a frantic text from her two minutes ago.

[ **Mari** ]

( _still cpming? did you get caught?! PLS tell me u didnt get caught my parents will seriousl y BAKE me into a MEAT P IE i am not kidding adrien_ )

"I am not going to even try to guess what you're doing here at this ungodly hour," Plagg deadpanned over Adrien's shoulder, reading Marinette's text with a disgusted curl to his lip. "I'm sure it's something gross and hormonal."

"Plagg," Adrien grumbled, stowing the phone and readjusting his backpack (he'd gone home for it on a whim) higher onto his shoulder. "It's not like that. Would you just shut up and get in my backpack, please? Come on. I even put food in there for you."

"Are there earplugs too? I feel like I'm gonna need them."

Blushing furiously, Adrien snatched Plagg out of the air and stuffed him in the backpack himself. "Sometimes I wish you came with a set of earplugs, for _my_ ears." His phone buzzed again.

[ **Mari** ]

( _seriously though adrien, do i need to come downstairs and rescue you from my parents? im starting to get concerned_ )

In lieu of answering the message, he took a deep breath, smoothed out his windblown hair a little, then crouched down to tap lightly on the skylight that he knew sat directly over the loft and her bed. The night air whistled along the roof tiles, gathering in eddies around his ankles. Without his cat ears he was forced to strain after the sound of her moving around beyond the black glass below him. All he could see in the window was his own faint reflection and that of the full moon that had just peaked out of the low-hanging clouds in the east, fractured in half between two of the glass panes. Looking at it, he saw himself. He saw her. Rent in two. He blinked at the pieces of the moon and then cocked his head to the side so that the reflection coalesced into a full circle again.

He grinned, and knocked again more fervently.

This time he could tell she had heard him. The shuffling sound crescendoed until the latch on the window creaked. When she pushed it up a tentative inch, he grabbed hold and pulled it open wide enough to slip through.

When he dropped down into the dark bedroom onto her bed, Marinette let out a surprised " _Eeep!"_ Then she slapped her hand over her mouth to mask the sound.

"Hi," he beamed, hastily shifting out of the natural crouch he'd landed in. (It was instinct. He wasn't _trying_ to give himself away.)

Marinette just gaped at him. "But, you…" Her eyes dilated to pinpoints and she pointed first at him, then at the window above, then at the trapdoor below that led down into the rest of her house. "Butㅡ" He knew full well that she'd been expecting him to come from there. "Butㅡwhat?" She screwed up her face at him. "Adrien Agreste, _what were you thinking?_ How did you even get up here? No wonder it took you so long! What if you had fallen?"

Realizing belatedly that his dirty shoes were on her adorable flowered bedspread, he set about unlacing them. "I wouldn't have fallen. I've been rock climbing since I was five," he assured her, with far more practicality than ego. Of course, he hadn't really climbed at all. He'd pole-vaulted onto her roof from the one across the street. She didn't need to know about that tonight, though. Tonight was about being a good friend to her; everything else was on hold.

"ButㅡI can't wrap my head around this," she giggled manically. "I'm trying. I just can't. _You_ , scaling the wall to my third story roof after midnight! That is so unlike you!"

That proclamation was sort of disheartening, yet it was to be expected. Part of his calibrated upbringing had been public image. So ingrained was the practice of toning down his eccentricities in the presence of other people (until the advent of Chat Noir, that is) that he'd gone on doing it even when he entered public school and got a breath of fresh air from the relentless supervision. So he wasn't surprised to hear Marinette thought of him that way. Reserved, well-behaved, and proper. This was the image he'd been trained to put out. Setting his converse lightly on the floor next to her bed so as not to draw any attention from downstairs, he turned back to Marinette with a playful expression, squinting his eyes in the dark. That image needed to be destroyed if he ever wanted to bridge this gap between them. Luckily for him, destroying things was what he did best.

"Actually," he said carefully, "it's a lot more like me than I usually let on."

This caught her off guard." O-oh," she stammered, faltering under his unabashed stare before leaning back on her arms in the pillows to regain her balance. "Really? You sneak out at midnight often?"

"What can I say?" he laughed. "I'm a delinquent. So how was your visit with Alya after school? Is she doing any better?"

Marinette averted her eyes, picking at the blanket distractedly. "She's… kind of doing worse, actually," she sighed. "She's in more pain than ever, and the doctors shooed me away after less than an hour."

"Did she get her card at least?" Adrien prompted when she fell into a sullen silence. "I had a feeling she might freak out over the Ladybug signature."

That made her break into a blinding smile, and the sight of it sent his heart careening off a cliff. "Yeah. I wish I'd filmed it, honestly. Her heartrate went so bananas that they called a code and like four doctors came rushing in thinking she was going into some kind of shock. That's when they kicked me out. I mean, she was fine, but the doctors didn't think it was very prudent of me."

"Well I think it was amazing of you," he chuckled. Leave it to Alya Cesaire to go into cardiac arrest over a signature from Ladybug. "Sorry you got kicked out though."

"It's okay," she smiled sadly, hugging her knees to her chest. "I'm not immediate family so I'm lucky they let me into the ward at all. Besides," and she held up her phone in mock triumph, "she's keeping me updated. We're waiting on the latest test results. Now I just need a distraction so I don't go crazy while I wait for them."

"I have you covered on that front," he smiled, and lugged his backpack across the bed to start digging through it. Halfway to Marinette's house the idea had struck him, and he hadn't been able to let it go. So he'd detoured across the city back to the Agreste Mansion to get this for her. When he found the book he'd gone back for and held it up, she blinked at it innocently.

God, she was so cute. It wasn't fair. "What is that?"

He squinted his eyes at the cover in the darkness. "The Landscape of Fashion: Paris, 1900-2000. It's my father's personal annotated copy," he explained, flipping through the first couple pages and scooting a little closer to her end of the bed to show her the notes lining the margins of the text. He flipped it one-eighty and passed it off. "It's got all his opinions and ideas scribbled in the sides. I thought you might like it."

Marinette's hands shook as she took the book from him and thumbed through a couple more pages, eyeing the hastily penned in thoughts. "I can't take this," she objected. "Do you have any idea how much money it's probably worth?"

"To him?" he shrugged. "None. It's been sitting untouched on his office shelf for almost ten years."

"But…" She touched a picture of a dress with arrows and critiques scribbled all around it like the page was etched in glass. "But _why?_ "

"I told you," he reasoned, watching the way she handled the pages with infinite care and devotion. "All it was doing was gathering dust. He'll never even notice it's gone. I want you to have it."

"No," she whispered, closing the cover on the book and bringing it to her chest before looking up at him, loose hair falling around her face like curtains. "No, not that. I mean… why? Why do this for me?" There was no self-reproach or unkindness in her voice at all. She spoke with pure curiosity, and a hint of a headier emotion that he couldn't quite recognize. "Why are you here, Adrien?"

"Oh," he said, surprised. "That."

He hadn't expected to get to this part so soon, and the floodgate of anxiety opened wide. From the moment he'd dropped down onto her bed, up until now, it had been relatively easy to just pretend he was keeping his word to himself, the silent promise he'd made to her as she descended the school steps. Supporting her. Being a friend. Doing the right thing. It was easy to imagine that nothing had changed since this morning, that his whole life hadn't flipped upside-down.

A nervous laugh escaped him. Leave it to Ladybug to force his hand.

"Look, I'm going to be straight with you. I hope you won't take it the wrong way." Unable to wait for her to answer or gauge her reaction, he plowed on, anxiously kicking the one leg that hung off the side of her bed. "I know you and I have never been that close but it really bothered me today that no one came to sit with you and cheer you up. You've always been such a people person, I guess I assumed that, I don't know, everyone was your best friend or something. But you're more like me, aren't you? With me it's like..."

He held one hand up really high, so that it cast a moonlight shadow between he and Marinette on the champagne-rose colored blanket. "Here's Nino," he explained. Then he held his other hand down to his other knee, where it lay folded haphazardly between them. "Then here's everyone else. I'm just nowhere near as close to anyone else as I am with him, because he gets me."

"Yeah," Marinette admitted softly. "You nailed it. That's me and Alya, for sure."

"Which is cool," he said quickly. "Having such a good friend is amazing. But Nino's not always around. Alya's not always around," he added quietly. "Especially now that they've started spending so much time together," he joked with a sly lilt to his tone. "And, at least for me, when Nino's not around, I start to realize that maybe he's not the only the only thing that's missing. And then… even when he comes back, I can still feel it." He finally managed to meet her eyes and saw that she was staring at him earnestly, hanging off his every word.

"Feel what?" she whispered. The slow, careful way she blinked at him made him feel like she already knew.

"I, uh.." he murmured, drowning in her eyes. "The empty spaces, you know? Where other people used to be." He tempered his words with as much neutrality as he could muster. _Mother_. _Father_. "Where it feels like other people are supposed to be, and aren't, yet." _Ladybug_. "Where other people would fit perfectly," he sighed. _You_. "I always thought it was just me feeling that way, but today it struck me that maybe you did too. And I was thinking," he breathed, "hoping… that you and I could fill some of that empty space for each other. What would you say to that?"

"Oh, Adrien," she whispered.

Her face was alive with rich, passionate emotion that he couldn't hope to understand. It terrified himㅡthis freefall in-between, where he'd bared his heart already but she hadn't yet accepted it. Setting the book aside, she crossed the space between them in a single smooth movement, settling less than an inch from from him. The only thing between them now was his own folded leg. He stared down at her, mouth slightly ajar. Mesmerized.

"I'd say I know exactly what you mean. There _is_ an empty space in my life where it feels like someone is supposed to be."

He couldn't help it; it slipped out. "I could be that person for you," he whispered.

If it struck her as odd that he'd just said the exact words Chat had said to her a couple of hours ago, she hid it well. She bit her lower lip, eyes half-lidded. A blush dusted her cheeks. But only when her eyes flitted to his mouth did he understand what she was doingㅡor, trying to doㅡand the realization was like a slap in the face with a million silken flowers.

 _Oh my god, she's working up the courage to kiss me._

Maybe it was wrong, considering he knew and she didn't. Maybe he should have waited for the playing field to even out before jumping off this cliffside. But the way she looked at him in that moment, like the world was a globe only ten feet wide and they were the only ones living on it, he could not possibly have rewarded her courage with rejection. (And in retrospect he could hardly believe he didn't see it coming. He knew she liked him, and the way he'd dropped in on her like this out of nowhere, saying the things he saidㅡhow else was she supposed to read his intentions?) So, regardless of the inherent complications, there was no way on Earth he was going to let her come out on the other side of this precious minute thinking he didn't want her. Not in this lifetime. So when her courage faltered and she started to pull away, he leaned down and kissed her.

A feminine noise of surprise parted her lips when he made contact. They were exactly as soft as he'd always imagined. The kiss took on a mind of its own as she surged upward, and he fought down a strained whimper in the back of his throat, then made to separate before he lost himself in her so thoroughly he'd never see daylight again.

But it was already too late. Her shaky hand found his collar and pulled him closer than ever before. He sighed and gave in. Bringing the hand he wasn't leaning on to caress the edge of her jaw, he pulled away a centimeter, just enough to turn his head and nudge her nose with his so he could come back again from another angle. But he wasn't prepared for the way her lips chased after his. The way the hand fisted in his shirt tugged at him like he was her only line to a ship lost at sea.

It unraveled him for good.

Caution trailed behind him like a comet's tail, cast off forever as he responded to her silent pleas, opening his mouth when she opened hers, dragging his hand around to the back of her neck when her hold on him tightened, tasting her bottom lip when she paused to breathe. She was wearing pomegranate chapstick, he noted faintly, in a faraway place in the part of his mind that wasn't trying to goad him into laying her down on the bed and showing her exactly how madly he loved her. For the rest of his life he would never be able to look at that fruit the same way.

When he released her lip she grew incredibly still, and in a fit of fear he looked up into her eyes. But he didn't see regret there. Only a mild dose of the same fear he was feeling. "I can't believe I just did that," she whispered, hands flying to her cheeks.

Gently he pried her hands from their death grip on her face, hitting her with the kindest smile in his arsenal. "Me neither. But I'm glad you did."

They way his words lit her face up, it was clear he'd given her the motivation to do it again. But they were still a hair's breadth from reconnecting when a phone buzzed on the bedspread, sending little tremors up Adrien's arm. He closed his eyes in disappointment when she pulled away, but then snapped to attention when she exclaimed, "It's Alya! Hello?" she answered. "Of course I answered on the first ring, I've been waiting all night to hear your test results! Spill! Immediately!"

Adrien settled back on his elbows, finding a comfortable position to lounge in while he watched the animated delight that was Marinette on the phone. Even for something so serious, Marinette managed to make a bit of a game out of it with Alya. He'd always admired that about the two of them.

"You're kidding," Marinette deadpanned after a long minute. "They're sure? I meanㅡI really don't know whether to give you my sympathies or my congratulations?" Adrien made a face of confusion at Mari, but she waved him off impatiently. He wrinkled his nose at her good-naturedly. "Well, I'm coming down there right now then!" There was a brief pause, wherein Adrien could sort of hear Alya's tinny voice pick up volume. "Alyaaa," Marinette whined. "God, fine." _Pause_. "Fine! No, you're right, I know they wouldn't let me in." _Pause_. "I know, jeez, I said you're right already!"

 _Pause_. Her eyes flitted briefly to Adrien and she poked at one of her pillows.

"…Yeah, he did." _Pause_. She refused to acknowledge Adrien's questioning stare. "Yeah, he still is." _Pause_. "No, you cannot!" she hissed. "Alya, I _swear to god_ ㅡ Alya?" She pulled the phone away from her face and glared at it. The call screen was flashing with a little red phone and the word ' _end_.' No sooner had she realized that Alya had hung up on her, than Adrien's phone started to buzz in his pocket. The murderous look on Marinette's face when she realized the buzzing was not her phone but Adrien's was somehow both terrifying and hilarious at the same time.

"Don't you dare," she whispered at him with icy venom, and in that instant he would have sworn on his own future grave that she was Ladybug, even if provided with a mountain of disputing evidence. But unfortunately for her… he was also Chat. The pout on her face when he saw ' _Alya calling_ ' and swiped to answer was worth it.

"Hello?" he said.

"Well well well," Alya's voice droned through the speaker. "Well well _well well_ wellㅡno wait, shit, that was too many wells. Hang up so I can call you again."

"I think Marinette would take my phone before you called back," he laughed uncertainly. He was pretty sure her clenched fists and dangerous eyes were for Alya, but not sure enough to test that theory. "So are you alright?" he asked. "What did the doctors say it was?"

"I'll let Mari tell you about that," she answered. "I only have a minute more to talk 'cause they're taking me for another whatever scan in a minute. I just wanted to say this. I don't know why you are over at Mari's house at one in the morning, but I wholeheartedly approve."

"Alya," he objected, flushing like mad. She was so _blunt_.

"Nuh. Shh. Listen, starchild. I approve, but _also_ , if you don't behave yourself I will gut you like a fish, got it?"

Adrien gulped. "Got it."

"Good," Alya chirped. "So anyway, as long as you _be-haave_ , you have my permission to distract Mari from my woes as much as is humanly possible. But also let her sleep. Poor girl didn't sleep a wink yesterday."

"I sincerely do not know how to respond to this," he grimaced.

At the other end of the line, Alya just laughed. "You don't have to. Just do me a solid. Marinette would kill me for saying this but she has liked you for a really long time. Don't mess with her, okay? If you like her, fuckin, _tell_ _her._ Ya' dumbass. If not, you need to go home. Got it?"

"Got it," he parroted.

"Also," Alya squealed suddenly, " _Ladybug signed my get well card. Did you see?!"_

"I saw," he chuckled, and heard the unmistakeable sound of a nurse arguing with her on the other end. The line went dead without warning, leaving Adrien alone again with Marinette, who he realized had scooted all the way to the back of the bed in the meantime and crawled half underneath her life-sized tiger pillow.

"What did she say?" Her words were barely intelligible from under the faux-fur stuffed animal.

Adrien lay back and rolled over on his side to smile at her warmly even though she couldn't see him. "Nothing I didn't already know." Only when he dragged his backpack over to him and started rustling through it did she emerge from her tiger cave to see what he was doing. "Alya gave me permission to distract you," he said blithely, pulling out his old school Gameboy. "See, I've had a link cable for like ten years but I've never had anyone to link up with…"

Regaining just a smidge of her dignity, Marinette eyed the Pokemon yellow game plugged into his lime green Gameboy. "Okay," she laughed at length. "But I'll have you know, I haven't lost a battle in almost a decade."

As she climbed down from the loft onto the lower floor of her room, Adrien crawled over to lay on her fluffy tiger. "So… what's up with Alya, anyway? The suspense is killing me."

"You won't believe it." The soft hush of drawers opening and closing filled the room, and Adrien watched her searching in the dark by the light of her phone screen fondly.

"Try me."

"Apparently," Marinette began, "her chest pain was totally unrelated to the akuma punch she got in the ribs. You know how she's always had a little asthma?"

"Sure, yeah."

"Well, apparently it was never asthma. The doctors found a tiny hole in one of her lungs. So the akuma just aggravated an existing condition."

Adrien sat up in bed, wrapping his mind around this development. "Wait, so Ladybug's spell didn't fail after all? It just didn't heal her because it was a pre-existing medical condition?"

Marinette moved her search from her desk to a decorative trunk beside her dresser. "I guess so. Not only that, but apparently, if the tear had gotten any worse one of her lungs would have collapsed. As it is, they're prepping her for surgery to make sure it doesn't doesn't do that."

"Dang," Adrien muttered. "Wasn't she going on a backpacking trip in a few weeks? What if it had collapsed while she was in the mountains?"

Even though she'd at last located her Gameboy, Marinette sighed dispassionately. "With the altitude change? It almost certainly would have. And who knows what would've happened then? She could have died." Pausing at the side of the bed after climbing up, she weighed Adrien's playful expression. "What?"

"Oh nothing." He leaned back into the tiger as nonchalantly as he could. "It just sounds to me like maybe what happened to Alya was lucky after all. You could even argue that it saved her life."

That got a soft smile out of her. "Oh, Adrien," she sighed. "You're a regular knight in shining armor, you know that? How do you always know precisely what to say?"

He could only shrug, and hesitantly hold out his arms. She flushed, but crawled into them gladly, turning around to settle her back against his side and set about hooking their Gameboys together.

"Meowth, huh?" she giggled when they both called forth their first pokemon of the battle. She'd called out a Venosaur named _dat boi_. God, he loved her. "I wouldn't have pegged you as a Meowth kind of guy."

He nuzzled the top of her hair with his cheek, and picked the most damaging attack in his arsenal. If he went easy on her she would know, and would rightfully kill him. "Like I said, Mari, there's more to me than I usually let on."

 _Dat boi_ took a huge hit of damage, wiping out fifty percent of its HP in one go, and he waited for her to come back at him with something equally devastating. But the minute turned into two, and still she sat frozen. He leaned over her shoulder and saw that she hadn't even chosen a move yet.

"Hey," he prompted. "You okay? Did I say something wrong?"

"Adrien?" she said softly, totally ignoring his question. "Can I ask you something crazy?"

He stiffened behind her, and she took due notice, craning her neck around to look up into his eyes. The expression on his face was wary and grim, but her eyes were wide with tentative understanding. Slowly, she set her Gameboy down, and pulled his out of his hands too. He made no move to stop her. The fire in her eyes had him in a trance.

"Just don't… mock me, if I'm wrong," she worried.

Subconsciously his now empty hands sought something to hold, and he curled his arms lightly around her waist. She wasn't wrong. He knew it, and it was obvious she knew it. After all, he hadn't exactly been subtle. "A knight never mocks a princess," he told her evenly.

With a wild-eyed gasp, she reached up and pressed one hand over his eyes, parting her fingers just enough to let his eyes peek through, searching his face for… for something. He didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but when he grinned at her weakly she must have found it, because she snatched her hand away like he'd burned her.

"Oh my god," she whispered. "I'm right. And that meansㅡ" She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace. "I gave myself away. I totally gave myself away, didn't I?"

He pressed his forehead to hers, delighted that she had yet to pull away from him. "A little bit," he snickered. "The fact that you're not screaming bodes well for me, I think."

"To be honest? I'm supremely sleep deprived and this whole entire night has felt like a dream."

Gently, tenderly, he caressed her cheek, urging her to open her eyes and look at him. "It's not a dream," he said. "At least, I hope not."

Her hand found his, and suddenly she was looking into his eyes again and the world had shrunk. It was just the two of them in the universeㅡand he had a distinct feeling that this is how he would feel for the rest of his life.

"Why are you so good to me?" she sighed.

That question rubbed him the wrong way. Did she not think she was worthy of all the stars in heaven and more? "I told you," he replied, like it was the most obvious and second-nature thing in the world. Because it was. "You're everything to me."

"Oh, minou," she whispered back, and punctuated the endearment with a loving kiss on the corner of his mouth, just barely missing his lip. "You're everything to me too. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," he sighed, and kissed her back on the nose. He'd always wanted to do that. "I know."

* * *

.

.

So this was originally gonna be two chapters but it got out of control haha. Next chapter will be the last. So three total.


	3. Chapter 3

Ahhh sorry this took so long! Hope it's worth the wait.

I'm gonna be forthright with you guys; I have seen every episode of this show exactly one time, and that was _many_ moons ago now. Forgive me if I've misremembered the floorplan of Marinette's bedroom, but the floorplan I have in my head is incredibly relevant to the scene at hand so I'm gonna describe it real quick in case I have it wrong, so you can picture it too. Basically her room is the attic, and inside her room is _another_ baby loft area that separates her bed from the rest of the room, with a ladder to climb up there or something. And there's that skylight window that sits above her bed. Yes? No? Regardless, that's what we're going with here.

* * *

 **Empty Spaces _ㅡ_ Part Three**

* * *

As a hot-blooded teenage boy, Adrien had spent his fair share of time picturing what it might one day be like to wake up with the love of his life in his arms. Sometimes in the early morning he'd lay there for longer than he should, watching the dust swirl in the golden sunstreams filtering through his windows, picturing her messy black hair sprawled out on his other pillow. Sometimes he'd spend so long imagining it that when he glanced over to his side he would be surprisedㅡjust for an instant in timeㅡnot to find her sleeping there. Breathing gently. Her eyes were always closed in the daydream, her hands curled beneath her chin and her shoulders warmed by the rising sun. Warm and soft and happy.

So when he woke up the morning after mistakenly falling asleep in Marinette's bed, if he'd been given some time to imagine the scene prior opening his eyes, then that recurring daydream is what he would have pictured.

But, as it were, he was not given time.

This is what happened:

 _A secluded wood in Norway. Walking aimlessly, and snow all around in every direction. A stinging cold that they've wrapped themselves against with long coats. Shallow footprints than fan out like ripples, and snowflakes that ring like bells. Descending, slow. A cold winter sky that tastes of nostalgia. Ladybug is here too, but she's forgotten her mask at home today. Just now she's discovered the native fairy cats with elation. Frosty breath rises before him, carving an aerial trail in the forest. He knew she'd like it here. She perks up when he calls out to her, cheeks pink from the cold. He wants to show her where his family once went to_ _ㅡ_

Real life barreled through the slow, pleasant dream like a derailed train, and he blinked in the morning light, flying through the airㅡno, fallingㅡandㅡ

 _Wham._

He gasped for breath as the hardwood floor next to the bed connected with his back and knocked the wind from his chest. But Marinette's hand immediately covered his mouth, muffling the sound of his desperate and confused pursuit of oxygen. Life and memory caught up all at once. Last night. _Last night._ He must have fallen asleep before leaving! And if Marinette's wide awake look of complete and utter terror was any indication, that had been a monumentally grave mistake.

"Marinette?" A bemused voice called up from somewhere out of sight below them and to the far right, in the general direction of the trapdoor that separated her attic bedroom and the rest of the house. Adrien gasped, causing Marinette to tighten her grip on his mouth even further. That was her mother! "Are you alright? Where are you?"

Adrien and Marinette exchanged the most panicked look of all time as the unmistakeable sound of footsteps carried across the room. "I'm fine!" Marinette squeaked, shooting upright so that her head poked up over the edge of her bed, just enough to let her mother see where she'd gone off to.

While she was looking the other way, Adrien couldn't help dragging his eyes downward. She had literally tackled him off the bed to hide him from sight and was therefore straddling his waist where they'd fallen. Plus, the state of her sleepy dishevelment (the messiest of bedheads, the tiniest of shorts, and a too-big shirt that was falling _just so_ off the crest of her shoulder) was the cutest thing he'd ever seen. If he wasn't so terrified he would have sighed like the lovelorn sap he was.

"I just fell off, that's all," Marinette rattled off with feigned nonchalance. "You startled me!"

"Silly goose," Sabine laughed. "It's only nine o'clock and you're already scraping your knees. Whatever am I going to do with you?" The footsteps had reached a stopping point, and the way Marinette's hold tightened even harder over his mouth led him to believe her mother was now ascending the ladder to join them in the loft.

In a moment of pure unadulterated horror at this latest plot development, Marinette squirmed on top of him like beached fish, and _fuck if it didn't feel really good_. His own hands flew to her hips to force her to hold still, to keep her from moving any more, from making this situation any worse than it already was. If she didn't stop doing that immediately there was going to be a Big Problem. They locked eyes again and he conveyed the issue as best he could, whereupon Marinette decided the best course of action was to animorph into a tomato. Adrien furrowed his eyebrows at her pleadingly, painting as much of an apology as was humanly possible given only the upper half of his face and .2 seconds to apologize with.

"Well," Marinette said to her mother faintly, though she was still looking at Adrien. "You could always just throw me in the trash with the other bad batches..."

That comment almost got him caught. He had to bite his lip so hard to stop the laugh from busting out that it almost bled.

At that point Marinette gathered the scattered remains of her wits and scrambled to her feet. Adrien tilted his head to the right and saw Sabine's slippers coming into view on the other side of the bed. As Marinette climbed back onto the bed, he caught his breath in his throat and slid sideways into the thin dusty space beneath the bed frame. Springs creaked above him as Marinette wiggled to and fro on the mattress, presumably making as much noise as possible to cover his retreat. Below, Adrien watched the white slippers edge slowly around the bed as the two women talked, and almost had an aneurysm when his eyes completed the circuit ahead of her and saw that his backpack lay directly in her path on the far side of the bed. A split second before Sabine turned the corner to the patch of floor where he'd so recently been suplexed, he hooked his foot through one of the straps and tugged it underneath the bed with him.

With ever-mounting fear he watched as the slippers neared his face and then stopped a few inches away. Mother and daughter continued their morning chat and Sabine joined Marinette on the bed. They talked and talked, and it seemed to him that Marinette was trying to get her mother out of the room but couldn't find her way to an excuse that wasn't suspicious.

Ten endless, agonizing minutes into the meandering conversation, Adrien happened to glance toward the ladder (maybe if he willed it hard enough Sabine would leave so he could make his shameful escape) and almost died. His orange converse. They were _right there on the floor at the top of the ladder._ In plain sight!

Sabine had walked right past them on her way to the bed!

It was another ten full minutes before Sabine finally stretched and rose, her words turning to breakfast and the coming workday. All the while Adrien had been glaring lasers at his incriminating shoes, reaming himself internally for leaving them so far from the edge of the bed. They were too far to retrieve the way he did his backpack. He tensed as Sabine's slippers descended to the floor on that side of the bed, but then she was walking, and she walked right past them. She didn't notice! Ha! Haha!

As she climbed down the ladder, Adrien slid back out from under the bed on the distal side so she wouldn't spy him when her face was level with the floor of the loft. They were almost home free when the unthinkable happened.

"Marinette?" Sabine wondered absently. "Whose shoes are these?"

Shit! No! No no no!

"What shoes? Oh, those shoes?!" Marinette answered, her voice like a tea kettle left on fifteen minutes too long. "Um, uhㅡthey're Adrien's?" she admitted weakly. He could almost see her desperate shrugging as she sought a viable excuse for the presence of a boy's shoes in her bedroom this early on a Saturday morning. "I uh… He let me take them home so I could embellish them? Yeah. He liked what I did to mine so I told him I'd do his too."

"Oh, I see," Sabine chuckled to herself. "That's clever, Marinette. All your father ever did to catch my notice before we dated was buy me flowers," she giggled. "Customizing his shoes is definitely a unique way to grab his attention, I'll give you that."

"Mom," Marinette groaned out of sight.

"What? I'm not stupid," Sabine said, and began her descent down the ladder. "You keep a picture of the boy on your desk, dear."

"I have a picture of Alya there too! And you and Dad, for that matter!" Marinette defended.

"Mhmm," Sabine agreed, though it sounded somewhat sarcastic (even to Adrien, who didn't know her very well).

Only when the trapdoor clicked shut behind her did Adrien's frantically beating heart allow him to breathe freely. Wiggling out from under the bed, he peeked up at Marinette ( _Ladybug_ he reminded himself with unholy glee), trying to school his shit-eating grin into something a little more serious and contrite. But he was pretty sure Marinette saw straight through it to the shit-eating grin. With a muted whine, she flopped over backwards onto the bed and pulled the tiger pillow over her face.

"You keep a picture of me on your desk?" he whispered.

"I have _so much_ ammunition to combat that with," Marinette mumbled from beneath her tiger pillow force field. "Do not test me, Adrien, I swear to god... I just… Give me a sec to wake up properly. I need a minute to wrap my head around this."

Adrien gave it freely, though he was too afraid that Sabine would walk back in to climb up on the bed and join her. (Or Tom, his brain supplied as a grave addendum. Huge, broad-shouldered, more-muscles-than-was-strictly-necessary-for-a-baker, kind-hearted but could-probably-kill-you-if-the-need-arose Tomas Dupain. It didn't matter that Adrien was a superhero. If Tom walked in and saw Adrien here he might as well start building a coffin.) So he sat on the floor with his chin resting on his forearms on Marinette's rumpled bedspread, patiently waiting for her to wrap her head around this. He wondered if she was trying to wrap her head around him being Chat or him accidentally falling asleep in her bed. Or them kissing. Or him being madly, desperately, dangerously in love with her.

"Um, Mari?" he whispered when he couldn't take the silence any longer. "I'm sorry I fell asleep here. Honestly, I was going to leave right when you fell asleep, but you were _on me_ , and you just looked so…"

He pressed his lips together, mind straying back to what had already found its pedestal as one of the most blissful memories of his life, right up there next to 'meeting her' and 'finding out who she was' and 'kissing her.' They hadn't said much after she figured him out, and he'd realized from her surprisingly calm reaction to it all how truly _tired_ she was from the whole Alya-fiasco. So he encouraged her to close her eyes. _We can talk more tomorrow_ , he'd said, kissing her on the forehead as she made her sleepy way even further into his arms, her head coming to rest on his chest and her arm curling around his stomach. So comfortable and elated was he that he couldn't bring himself to slip out from under her when her breathing evened out with the telltale pattern of slumber. _Just a couple more minutes,_ he'd told himself, wanting to savor this for as long as he could.

Aaand then it was morning. Whoops.

"Happy," he ended, too distracted by the memory to come up with a better excuse. _And I was happy._

Slowly, she rolled onto her side, still refusing to remove the tiger from its perch on top of her, but just far enough so that he could clearly see her. The look on her face was thoughtful. "You're really him, aren't you?"

A tentative nod was all he could give her because her sudden thoughtfulness was setting him on edge. Was she having second thoughts? _Please god no._

"I'm sorry, I just… When you came over last night, I hadn't slept in almost two days," she explained. "I was so tired, and it was all so surreal. You kept saying theseㅡthese _things_ that made me think of Chat, and I was seriously starting to question my sanity. I thought maybe I was dreaming. But I wasn't." She furrowed her eyebrows lightly from beneath the tiger, as if he was an optical illusion and she was still trying to make sense of him.

Adrien tilted his head onto his cheek, squishing it against his hand. "No," he agreed. "You weren't."

"Did you really mean all that stuff you said?"

Snapping upright with a bit of indignance, he muttered, "Of course!"

"I know that," she reasoned, a mote of embarrassment creeping into her voice. "I guess I just meant, now that I'm not suffering severe sleep-deprivation I can fully appreciate the magnitude of this. You are _Chat Noir_ and you figured me out and came over to my house and we _kissed_."

"Can I be honest?" Adrien asked, and she opened her mouth to reply but her words died in her throat when his fingers curled around her closest hand. "I planned that speech way before I found out you were Ladybug. I mean, you were kind of the first friend I ever made in lycée," he admitted shyly. He wasn't sure if she even knew that. "And I always liked you and looked up to you and wished we were closer. You were precious to me, _way_ before I knew you were also the girl I was in love with. I just didn't know how to reach you. You were like thisㅡthis light in a window at the top of a castle."

"Oh my god," Marinette deadpanned, and he wondered if he'd said something wrong. "Is _that_ why you call me Princess?"

Adrien felt his blush creeping down as far as his neck. "Maybe."

He must have said something right after all, because she finally decided to emerge from her hidey-hole underneath the tiger pillow. She pulled herself onto her stomach so that she was facing him, her face inches from his. His lungs ceased function. He tried to open the task manager to reboot them, but then she mirrored his position by resting her chin on her forearms and he decided to go ahead and give breathing up as a lost cause. The tip of her nose brushed his. She was so close he had to pick one of her eyes to look at, and found himself nearly drowning in it.

"Can I kiss you?" she asked.

Yep. Drowning. Throw the guy a lifesaver or kiss him goodbye.

"I think I'll literally die if you don't," he mumbled. She started to giggle and couldn't stop, even when she pressed her lips gently to his, which for some reason just _killed him._ Sighing in the most lovesick of ways, he trailed his thumb across her cheek.

"Marinette?"

Tom. That was _Tom's voice!_ Abort! Abort!

Adrien hit the deck and Marinette sprung to her knees to ward off her father.

"You up yet? Breakfast is getting cold."

"Yes, I'm getting up now! I have to change first though so _be gone_. I'll be down in a minute okayloveyoubye!"

Once Tom had departed with a hearty chuckle, Marinette leaned off the edge of the bed to survey Adrien where he lay prone on the floor with a guilty, terrified look. "Not that I want you to, but you should probably go. I don't wanna test our luck any further."

"Agreed," he breathed shakily.

"But uh… What do you think about coming back in a little while through the front door?" she posed. "You come come with me to visit Alya, if you want. She should be in recovery from the surgery by now."

"Yes. Brilliant. Sold." Honestly, he'd agree with anything she said at this point, as he was still riding on the adrenaline-high of kissing her.

"Okay," she giggled. "I'll tell my parents you're picking me up in an hour."

.

.

When he came back in fresh clothes to pick Marinette up, she was downstairs in the bakery stocking fresh croissants in the display case. It was a good thing her parents didn't see him straight away because when he saw Marinette standing there in a ruffled floral skirt and a cropped white top, her hair done up in a lovely braided bun, leaning over the display case with that beautiful smile of hers, anyone with a pair of eyes would have seen how much he loved her. "Good morning, Marinette," he called out, perhaps laying the cordiality on a bit too thick. "Ms. Cheng," he added politely when her parents turned around to greet him, trying not to think of their almost-confrontation this morning. "Mr. Dupain."

His discomfort must have been obvious to Marinette because she snatched up her purse and steered him right back out of the shop before her parents could properly intercept him. However, on their way out when they were waving goodbye, Adrien caught Sabine staring thoughtfully at his feet. He followed her line of sight down to his shoes.

...The orange converse.

 _Fuck_.

Maybe she didn't notice, he tried to convince himself. Maybe she didn't connect the dots. But not three minutes later, Marinette's phone buzzed. She hummed to herself at the text. "Now what does that mean, I wonder?"

Oh no. "What?" His heart was still hammering from the glint in Sabine's eye.

"My mom says, ' _we'll talk about this later,'_ " she read.

"Oh, uh… I don't know," he shrugged manically. They'd cross that bridge when they came to it. Or burn it down maybe. Or run? Running was definitely an option.

The sky was cloudless today, a brilliant markless blue, and the air around them warm and placid. Saturday traffic was in full swing and the street alive with pedestrians and cyclists alike. Yet, the flow of motion had comforting calmness to it, like a swift but silent river. Adrien and Marinette slipped into it easily.

They walked along in silence for awhile, but not of the awkward kind. It was warm. They still hadn't had time to actually talk about this directly, between Marinette falling asleep on him and the rude awakening and his hasty departure. But instead of hanging between them heavily, the words still unspoken felt more like a destination they'd yet to arrive at, and it was okay to Adrien that there were still a few more obstacles to pass before they could get there. Marinette seemed okay too. More than okay, in fact. As she walked there was a distinct bounce in her step, and the looks she sent his way every minute or so both set him at ease and sent his heart on without him, leaving his body and soul far, far behind.

As they stopped at an intersection about halfway to the hospital to wait for the light to change, Marinette leaned on the pole and blinked up at him happily. "I like this," she said.

A large family arrived at the street corner too, talking amongst themselves. Adrien moved closer to Marinette to make room for the newcomers at the sidewalk's edge, watching as the light changed from green to yellow to red. "It's not weird?" he wondered as they stepped into the road together.

"I didn't say it wasn't weird," she laughed. "It's hella weird. But I like it."

"I like it too," he agreed softly. Her lightly swinging hand twitched in surprise when he brushed his fingers on hers, but then she understood and let him in gladly. "You look really pretty today," he added before he could stop himself.

From here he could see Marinette fighting a sudden smile. "You look pretty too," she blurted. "Wait, _no_ , I meant to sayㅡshut up!" she huffed indignantly at the slaphappy grin on his face.

"You can't tell me to shut up," Adrien drawled. "I'm calling the police."

That got an instant cackle out of her. "God, minou, you're so…" When she trailed off, he turned to her with an inquisitive quirk of the eyebrow. Her fingers tightened around his. "Y'know, it's funny. The day I fell in love with you, Adrien, it was because you subverted my expectations. I thought I had you pegged as a jerk but then you were _wonderful_ to me and it changed everything. I knew, then, that there was someone amazing under all that practiced poise you put on for the world. That there was someone hidden inside you, who no one had ever met before. And I… I wanted to meet him. I wanted it so bad that no matter what Chat said to me or how much I liked it, I didn't want hear it. Because I was already waiting for someone else. But…"

She broke off laughing, and skipped in front of him so that he had to jolt to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk lest he bowl over her. The pedestrians behind them cut around them, sending them the stink eye for the sudden stop. Adrien didn't care. All he saw was Marinette, still hanging on to his hand as she cocked her head at him, glowing with curiosity.

"But that hidden Adrien I've always wanted to meet was _Chat Noir,_ " Mari said, and the way she said his name was like pure sunshine. Was this what swooning felt like? "And I've already met him," she added quietly. "He's already my best friend. How lucky am I to have gotten my wish before I even wished it?"

There was nothing he could think to say to that, besides, "Almost as lucky as me, lovebug." With a quick wink he pulled her along again.

When they got to the hospital they separated, as Nino had just arrived as well. Adrien didn't really want to explain this to Nino quite yet, and Marinette seemed to be on the same page because she put a bit of extra space between them, blushing hard. Together the three of them went to the desk to speak with the attendant.

"There's only one visitor allowed in at a time," the woman said immediately, as soon as they'd given her Alya's name and room number. "Who wants to be first?"

Marinette's hand shot up, but Adrien reached around her shoulder and gently pushed her arm down. "Nino can go first," he offered.

Nino furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, while Marinette narrowed her eyes murderously. "Um," Nino worried. "Bro. I think Marinette wants to go first."

"No, it's fine," Adrien insisted before Marinette had a chance to speak up, and eyed her with a colorful ' _please just trust me'_ look. "Go ahead, Nino, we have all day to see her. No worries."

"Yeah," Marinette ground out, and folded her arms with impatience over her chest. "Sure, whatever. It's fine."

Only when Nino had disappeared into the password-locked double doors with the attendant did Marinette round on Adrien with the appropriate level of sass the situation called for. And honestly, he didn't blame her. "Okay, you have five seconds to explain why I'm not going first before I get a broom and chase you out of here like the mangy cat you are."

Five seconds was enough. "Nino is head over heels for her," Adrien spat out quickly. "I know it's not easy to tell with his chill exterior but this whole thing has been crushing him. He's been totally devastated and besides," he added breathlessly, then leaned in to whisper the final blow in her ear. She leaned in toward him despite herself. " _I doubt the one visitor at a time rule applies to Ladybug or Chat Noir…"_

When he stood up straight again an evil smile had begun to spread across her face. "Did I tell you that I love you?" she said. "I'm pretty sure I said it but let me say it again." Squishing his cheeks between her hands almost painfully, she beamed up at him. "I. Love. You. Let's go find a dark closet."

He followed after her out of the waiting room, grinning lazily to himself. "Just so you know," he said, "I could have made _so many_ innuendos about what you just said, but I'm choosing not to because I'm nice like that."

"No, it's because you value your life," she called back.

In the end they settled for an empty stairwell, and double-checked that there were no security cameras mounted anywhere in the landing before calling Tikki and Plagg out of Marinette's purse (where they'd been doing god only knows what) to transform them. When the firework display of transformative light faded from the walls, Adrien was left staring at his lady. But it wasn't Ladybug standing there in the familiar costume he knew as well as his own. It was Marinette Dupain-Cheng, looking back at him with awe and delight. It was amazing how readily he saw her there now that he knew the truth. How little the spots changed his view of her. She might as well be wearing a witch hat or a wizard cloak, for all the difference her costume made now that he _knew_ who was standing here in front of him. This was the girl he'd held all night, and kissed just this morning, and walked through the city hand in hand with. The girl he loved. The light in the castle. She was _everything_.

And she was his.

"What?" she wondered up at him, suddenly shy.

"Nothing," he said numbly. "It's just that it's one thing to know it. Seeing it is just… Damn."

"Yeah," she agreed with a giggle, and shook off the trance to bounce toward the door with uncontained excitement. "Alright, come on, loverboy. Let's go give Alya a heart attack!"

As it turned out, Alya didn't have a heart attack.

But…

Let's just say it was a close call.

* * *

.

.

Writing these two characters is a never-ceasing battle with the English language to find new ways to describe the physical manifestion of embarrassment. That said… 'animorphing into a tomato' might be a personal best.

 **So the reason this too so long is because I got caught up starting another story. 'Strange Aeons.' Serious stuff! My most exciting project to date! If you liked this, check that one out okayloveyoubye.**


End file.
